Hakkō ichiu

Prewar 10-sen Japanese banknote, illustrating the Hakkō ichiu monument in Miyazaki

Hakkō ichiu (八紘一宇^?, literally "eight crown cords, one roof" i.e. "all the world under one roof") was a Japanese political slogan that became popular from the Second Sino-Japanese War to World War II, and was popularized in a speech by Prime Minister of Japan Fumimaro Konoe on January 8, 1940.

Outline

The term was coined early in the twentieth century by Nichiren sect Buddhist activist and nationalist Tanaka Chigaku, who cobbled it from parts of a statement attributed in the chronicle Nihon Shoki to legendary first emperor Jimmu at the time of his ascension. The full statement by the emperor Jimmu reads: "Hakkō wo ooute ie to nasan" 八紘を掩うて宇と為さん or in the original kanbun Japanese (not necessarily the way that the Chinese would render it) 掩八紘而爲宇: 'I shall cover the eight directions and make them my abode,' with "hakkō" 八紘 ' eight crown cords' identical to "happō" 八方 'eight directions.

Ambiguous in its original context, Tanaka interpreted the statement by Jimmu, mythically descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu, as meaning that imperial rule had been divinely ordained to expand until it united the entire world. While Tanaka saw this outcome as resulting from the emperor's moral leadership, many of his followers were less pacifist in their outlook.

Racial equality and growing expansionism

Further information: Racial Equality Proposal, 1919 and Jewish settlement in Imperial Japan

Founding Ceremony of the Hakko-Ichiu Monument on April 3, 1940. It had Prince Chichibu's calligraphy of Hakkō ichiu, carved on its front side.

Prewar 10-sen Japanese stamp, illustrating the Hakkō ichiu and the 2600th anniversary of the Empire.

Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun presiding the celebration of the 2600th anniversary of mythical foundation of the Empire in November 1940.

Japanese pilots who gathered under the flag of Hakkō ichiu during the Pacific War.

Japanese in Western nations suffered from racial discrimination issues. In 1919, Japan proposed a racial equality clause at the Paris Peace Conference. Their proposal received the support of a majority but was vetoed by Woodrow Wilson, in violation of the rules of the Conference on majority vote. In 1924, the Asian Exclusion Act was put in force. Then, Asians immigrated to Manchuria; however, the Manchukou (Manchus Empire) was not recognized by the Allied Powers. On December 6, 1938, the Five ministers council (Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, Army Minister Seishirō Itagaki, Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, Foreign Minister Hachirō Arita and Finance Minister Shigeaki Ikeda), which was the highest decision making council at the time, took the decision to prohibit the expulsion of the Jews from Japan, Manchuria, and China in accordance with the spirit of racial equality. Thereafter, the Japanese received Jewish refugees despite their ally Nazi Germany's opposition.

With the economic impact of the Shōwa financial crisis and the Great Depression, this led in the 1930s to a resurgence of nationalist, militarist and expansionist movements. Emperor Shōwa and his reign became associated with the rediscovery of Hakkō ichiu as an expansionist element of Japanese nationalistic beliefs. The naval limitations treaties of 1921, and especially 1930, were a mistake in their unanticipated effect on internal political struggles in Japan; and the treaties provided an external motivating catalyst which provoked reactionary, militarist elements to desperate actions which eventually overwhelmed civilian and liberal elements in society.

The evolution of Hakkō ichiu serves as a changing litmus test of these factional relationships during the next decade.

The term Hakkō ichiu did not enter general circulation until 1940, when the second Konoe administration issued a white paper titled "Fundamental National Policy" (基本国策要綱 Kihon Kokusaku Yōkō), which opened with these words, and in which Prime Minister Konoe proclaimed that the basic aim of Japan's national policy was "the establishment of world peace in conformity with the very spirit in which our nation was founded" and that the first step was the proclamation of a "new order in East Asia" (東亜新秩序 Tōa Shin Chitsujo), which later took the form of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere"). In the most magnanimous form, the term was used to indicate the making of a universal brotherhood implemented by the uniquely virtuous Yamato. Because this would bring people under the emperor's fatherly benevolence, force was justified against those who resisted.

1940 was declared the 2600th anniversary of the founding of Japan in part in celebration of hakko ichiu.

World War II

As the Second Sino-Japanese War dragged on without conclusion, the Japanese government turned increasingly to the nation's spiritual capital to maintain fighting spirit.

Characterization of the fighting as a "holy war" (聖戦, seisen), similarly grounding the current conflict in the nation's sacred beginnings, became increasingly evident in the Japanese press at this time. In 1940, a Taisei Yokusankai was launched to provide political support to Japan's war in China.

The general spread of the term Hakkō ichiu, neatly encapsulating this view of expansion as mandated in Japan's divine origin, was further propelled by preparations for celebrating the 2600th anniversary of Jimmu's ascension, which fell in the year 1940 according to the traditional chronology. Stories recounted that Jimmu, finding five races in Japan, had made them all as "brothers of one family."

Allied response

After Japan declared war on the Allies in December 1941, Allied governments produced several propaganda films citing the Hakkō ichiu as evidence that the Japanese intended to conquer the entire world.

The official translation offered by contemporary leaders was "universal brotherhood", but it was widely acknowledged that that expression meant that the Japanese were "equal to the Caucasians but, to the peoples of Asia, we act as their leader."

Allied judgement

Hakko Ichiu meant the bringing together of the corners of the world under one ruler, or the making of the world one family. This was the alleged ideal of the foundation of the Empire; and in its traditional context meant no more than a universal principle of humanity, which was destined ultimately to pervade the whole universe. The way to the realisation of Hakko Ichiu was through the benign rule of the Emperor; and therefore the "way of the Emperor"—the "Imperial" or the "Kingly way"—was a concept of virtue, and a maxim of conduct. Hakko Ichiu was the moral goal; and loyalty to the Emperor was the road which led to it. Throughout the years that followed measures of military aggression were advocated in the names of Hakko Ichiu eventually became symbols for world domination through military force.

See also

• An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus
• Greater East Asia Conference
• Japanese militarism
• Japanese nationalism
• Lebensraum
• Racial Equality Proposal, 1919
• Shinmin no Michi

References

• Beasley, William G. (1991). Japanese Imperialism 1894–1945. Oxford: Oxford University. 10-ISBN 0-198-22168-1; 13-ISBN 978-0-198-22168-5.
• Bix, Herbert P. (2001). Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York: HarperCollins. 10-ISBN 0-060-93130-2; 13-ISBN 978-0-060-93130-8.
• Brendon, Piers (2002). The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s. New York: Vintage. 10-ISBN 0-375-70808-1; 13-ISBN 978-0-375-70808-4.
• Brownlee, John (1997). Japanese Historians and the National Myths, 1600–1945: The Age of the Gods. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 0774806451.
• Earhart, David C. (2007). Certain Victory: Images of World War II in the Japanese Media. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe. 10-ISBN 0-765-61776-5; 13-ISBN 978-0-765-61776-7.
• Edwards, Walter. "Forging Tradition for a Holy War: The Hakkō Ichiu Tower in Miyazaki and Japanese Wartime Ideology." Journal of Japanese Studies 29:2 (2003).
• Morrison, Samuel Eliot (1948). History of United States Naval Operations in World War II: The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939 – May 1943. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 40 editions – [reprinted by University of Illinois Press at Urbana, 2001. 10-ISBN 0-252-06973-0; 13-ISBN 978-0-252-06973-4].